Wednesday, March 7, 2012

On Writing: It Feels Like the Very First Time

     I worked as a print journalist for more than a decade — first as a reporter, then as an editor —writing for everything from start-ups to established papers with circulations in the tens of thousands. I estimate I’ve written 1,000 to 2,000 articles, columns, and editorials. I won some journalism awards at the state and regional level.
     I’m a writer. I can put a sentence together, and I used that skill to pay my bills and buy my beer for at least a quarter of my life. Every week I put my name on work and stuck it in the public eye. No muss, no fuss, no stress.
     Why, then, did I have a hard time sleeping the night before my latest public airing, my paid-fiction debut in Something Wicked? I felt butterflies flopping in the acid inside my gut and sweat beading in the lines of my palms. I paced. I fretted. I drove my wife up the wall. Hell, I drove myself up the wall. 

     The folks at Something Wicked are class acts. I sold the story in September, and editor Joe Vaz said it would be five or six months before it ran. Joe sent me an email in February to tell me I’d be hearing from the publication’s fiction editor Vianne Venter in a couple of weeks, and I did. Vianne suggested a couple of small changes to make the story better and interviewed me for “Writers Cornered.” I couldn’t have asked for better publishing pals. I want to make them tea and help them with their dishes. My thanks to both of them.
     Still, you know — stress. 
     It’s all just writing, right? Right. And wrong. As a journalist I was in the business of telling other people’s stories. As long as I got my facts straight, quoted everybody right, added some style and grace for the readers, I was in the clear. I’d done my job. Anyone with a quarrel with the narrative could call the number listed after “For more information about the Puppykillers Club, call the club president at …” 
     Nowadays, I’m not only the writer; I’m the source of the narrative. It all came out of the creaky, slimy, anti-grav, polka-dotted, peanut-butter-and-ozone-smelling, cyberpunked, muppeted, bourbon-soaked chambers in my head. With every story I write now, I have two chances to suck: craft and creation.
     Hence, the stress.
     Maybe it will be easier the next time.

10 comments:

  1. Congrats on your professional fiction writing debut! Love the title of your blog post :)

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  2. Thanks, Suzi. But now I can't get Foreigner out of my head.

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  3. It was a fantastic story, too, Rob. I can't imagine anything you right sucking, so just keep it up, keep sending them out so I can keep reading them.

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    1. Hi Kelly! :) (psst...you spelled right wrong! Doh! ;))

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  4. Rob, your piece was excellent.I enjoy your writing. When my novel first came out I felt the same way I used to feel on opening night before one of the plays I performed in high school. Writing fiction is barring your soul. It's a good thing :)

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    1. Thanks, K.S. I'm not really an "onstage" person, so I always avoided those school plays. I tend to avoid emoting.

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  5. Awesome! And you know I'm singing...Feels like the first time...feels like the very first time, now?! I will sic my coworkers on you. My singing voice is not nice!

    By the way, can you come make me tea and help with my dishes? Seriously. ;-)

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    1. Were you not so far away, I likely would. And sorry about those co-workers.

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  6. Congrats! And that song is stuck in my head now too. Loved the story. Can't wait to read more!

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  7. Congratulations, Rob. And, based on the adjective list above (and my own twisted brain), I can't stop thinking about what a bourbon-soaked muppet would be like.

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